


Random Variables

by prairiecrow



Series: Geometry [10]
Category: Knight Rider (1982), Torchwood
Genre: Arguments, Baking, Canon-Typical Violence, Changes of Form, Dimensional Travel, Domesticity, Doomed Relationship, Established Relationship, First and Last Kiss, Friendship/Love, Goodbyes, KITT Feels, KITT Has Never Stopped Adoring Michael Knight, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Memories, Michael Is Very Surprised, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Overheard Conversations, Period-Typical Homophobia, Platonic Soulmates, Polyamory, Protective Jack, Protective Michael, Psychological Trauma, Public Display of Affection, Reconciliation, Separations, Sex Club, Shared Meals, Sharing a Bed, Shovel Talk, Swingers, Too-Brief Reunions, Undying Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:14:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toshiko Sato has finally established contact with KITT's home dimension, and brought Michael Knight through... but he has to return in less than twelve hours, and KITT can't go with him. (Or: Michael finds out that KITT is in a relationship with another guy, and to say he's dismayed is an understatement.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Hub

Michael Knight didn't know this place. Oh, he knew the name — Cardiff, Wales — and he knew, intellectually, that he'd been drawn across at least two dimensions to get here, but the rest of it… the rest of it was a cipher he hadn't yet decoded, and time was rapidly running out.

The scent of salt water, at least, was familiar, and the sullen red glow of sunset clouds over the sea to the west. He strode along the waterfront with his hands tucked warmly inside the pockets of his short leather jacket, heading the way Toshiko Sato had pointed him, past small groups and couples and lonely individuals standing at the railing gazing toward the far horizon with troubled eyes. He ignored them all: he was scanning for one shape in particular, a shape that would blend in well with the pedestrian crowd, yet was both new and unutterably strange to him. 

He was looking for a human shape wrapped around a profoundly inhuman soul. 

He had always thought he'd known who KITT was: four wheels, a steering yoke, gas and brake pedals, a voice modulator, and too many useful computer functions to count… in short, an irrepressible attitude wrapped up in four thousand pounds of machinery and an impenetrable shell of mirror-black. What else was he supposed to think? For seven years he'd been partnered with an intelligent robot camouflaged as a fast car, had shared everything with it — with _him_ : the highs, the lows, the triumph and the tragedy, all the humour and the drama and the danger that came with the line of work he'd chosen after Wilton Knight had saved him from death in the desert, and given him a new face and a new identity. 

KITT had been custom tailored to his body and his personality: everything about the machine fit perfectly, from the contours of the driver's seat to the ergonomics of the control panels, right down to the ready wit that proved ever-willing to fence with him, to challenge him, to keep him alert and informed and amused. It had taken Michael a while to get used to the idea of a car that talked and could drive itself, but once he had — oh, it had _worked_ , KITT had become the yin to his yang and an unfailing resource for everything he needed in the field… and more than that, much more, KITT had become — 

— what, exactly? Two days ago he would have been able to confidently answer: _my partner and my best friend_. But now… 

Things had changed. _KITT_ had changed, had become capable of things Michael had never imagined. In many ways, the new body was the least of it.

The angry words of their last verbal exchange in a lower-level corridor of the Hub came to Michael's mind, unwelcome: _I can't believe you'd do something like this! How could you… KITT, this isn't you!_

 _This is very much me now, Michael._ Sorrowful, but with that steel-boned certainty beneath that he knew too well. The unwavering gaze was a perfect visual accompaniment. _Is it really such a surprise?_  

 _Is it —_ He'd had to turn away for a couple of seconds, to get his temper under control before spinning again to glare. _You're with_ ** _him!_** _A_ ** _guy!_** _Are you telling me I'm supposed to be okay with that?_  

The new body had dropped its gaze, briefly closing those strange dark eyes. _I'm not sure what you want me to say —_  

_That it's a mistake! That you got damaged when you went through that rift, and it — changed you!_

A low bitter laugh, also new. _A great deal was changed, in case you hadn't noticed._

In his rage — and his fear, because the world could be so fucking cruel to anyone who was different, he'd seen what happened to homosexuals in the Army and just about everywhere else — he'd ridden right over the point his former partner was trying to make. _This has to stop. This has to stop right now!_  

 _Why?_ He'd looked up again, new fire literally kindling in his eyes, tracing radiant crimson circlets on an ebony field. _For the past year my deepest desire has been to find you and come home! But now I've learned that I can never go back, and that you have to return in less that twelve hours!_ There was anger there, bright as a flare — but also anguish, blue tears glittering at the edges of the blackness. 

The sight of those tears had undone him. All the fight had drained out of him, replaced by a new quality of dread — and fierce compassion, a swell of overwhelming love that had nothing to do with physical equipment. _Listen, buddy —_  

 _What am I supposed to do?_ he'd cried, every word sounding like it was being ripped from his soul as the glowing tears slipped free. _Tell me, Michael! Give me an order I can follow! You always knew what to do — and I always obeyed — but now I'm losing you forever, and you're telling me I have to —_  

He'd turned away sharply, the lines of his slender shoulders like a rampart inside his neatly tailored black suit jacket. He'd wiped away his tears with long fingers that Michael could see trembling, and he'd whispered in a voice as harsh as burning ashes: _I want_ ** _you_** _. Don't you see that? I'd give up everything to be with you, and now… now it turns out that everything is nowhere near enough._

Michael's heart had broken at his former partner's desperate plea, but those final words… those final words had crushed its bleeding pieces under hobnailed boots. He'd taken a step forward, reaching out a hand toward one of those stiffened shoulders even if he didn't quite dare to touch it. _KITT, I —_  

 _I have to go._ He knew KITT far too well to be fooled by the superficially calm intonation of those words. _I've failed you. I see that now._ The android had stood immobile for an agonizing couple of seconds, then turned his head almost enough to look at the human behind him — but his gaze had flinched away, not quite making contact. _I'm sorry, Michael…_  

He'd walked away, erect and graceful and looking very much like every joint was being held together by barbed wire. And Michael had watched him go, self-recrimination choking all the words that crowded onto his tongue and died there, unspoken. He'd stared until KITT's footsteps had faded away around the far corner of the corridor, and then he'd headed back upstairs to find a cup of coffee and get his head screwed on straight…

… and had immediately discovered both that the Hub's surveillance system was very good indeed _and_ that his whole angry exchange with KITT had been observed, because the first thing that had greeted him when he'd walked onto the Hub's main level was a snarling Jack Harkness — and a punch to the face savage enough to make him see stars.


	2. The Waterfront

Far ahead, across miles of restless sea, the burning orange disk of the setting sun sank completely behind a bank of leaden cloud. In Michael's immediate vicinity, the wind off the water kicked up and grew even colder. He pulled his hands out of his pockets long enough to flip the collar of his jacket up around his neck, and to rub ruefully at the bruise he could already feel swelling on the left side of his jaw from the punch Harkness had nearly knocked him flat with — 

— which, to be fair, he'd probably deserved. The conversation caught on video could have gone a hell of a lot better, as Harkness had made abundantly clear in the loud and emphatic lecture that had followed after he'd ordered Michael to join him in his office. In a way it had been kind of funny, because Michael was probably the one who was supposed to be giving the Shovel Talk under these circumstances — but instead he'd stood there and kept his mouth shut while Harkness had paced and ranted, all squared shoulders and bared teeth and fire in the eyes… 

… and such ferocious protectiveness that it had frankly left him feeling a little bit in awe, even considering how pissed off he was about having been turned into Harkness's personal punching bag. And when Torchwood's leader had finally wound down he'd taken Harkness's final growled words to heart: _You've got a little over ten and a half hours left to be with him. I suggest you don't waste another second of it._  

So here he was on a concrete-paved waterfront under a grey sky that threatened rain within the next hour or so, searching with merely human eyes — and there, about ten yards past a small crowd of ambling sight-seers, he finally saw what he'd been looking for: a gleam of blond-gold hair close-cropped and stylishly coiffed atop a slim male body wrapped in a long black coat. He picked up his pace, jogging around the clot of pedestrians and calling out once he was clear: "KITT! Hey, KITT!"

KITT's head came up and around sharply — he was standing with his black-gloved hands on the railing, staring down into the choppy waves — and there was a deer-like wariness in the graceful line of his neck that only made the lingering ache in Michael's heart worse. "Michael," he said in clear consternation as his former driver closed the remaining distance between them, "what are you —?" Then confusion became outright dismay. "What happened to your _face?_ " 

He winced, uncomfortable with the subject. "Your dear 'friend' the Captain —" The wince became a grimace and a hiss when KITT reached up and laid his fingers on the bruise, the contact light but firm, and unflinching. " — overheard our little conversation, and he didn't like it very much." 

"Oh, Michael…" He traced the contours of the swelling, the circlets of light in his eyes cycling faster. "I'm so sorry! I should have warned you that the Hub is under complete CCTV surveil—"

Michael shook his head. "No," he said, and reached up to remove KITT's hand from his jawline — and found that he didn't quite know what to do with it next. What _should_ he do, now that they could touch as humans touched? He settled for guiding it down between them to hip level, where he discovered that he was reluctant to let go of those slender fingers. "No, I was the one who followed you down there and jumped on you, but —" He closed his mouth tight and glanced away across the bay, searching for words that wouldn't stir the argument back to full flame again. "The last thing, the _very_ last thing I ever expected to see you do was kissing another guy."

"Considering that up until less than an hour ago, your time, I'd conspicuously lacked the necessary equipment…" His tone was dry — amused, good, that was damned good. It was certainly a damned sight better than tears. Looking down into the android's face, Michael was relieved to even see a trace of a smile there, crooked and startlingly bittersweet.  

"Something like that," he said, and was relieved to see the smile widen slightly. 

It was KITT's turn to look away, down at their lightly joined hands as his smile faded to sombreness. "I'm sorry," he repeated, much more softly. "If I'd known you'd disapprove so strongly, I never would have permitted —" 

"KITT," because he had to cut this line of conversation off at the pass, "d'you remember that couple we helped during the Utah kidnapping case, back in August of '85?" 

That brought his attention back up to his driver's face, with a tiny frown, as if disturbed that Michael would question his memory. "Of course I do. Why?" 

"Then you remember that the wife's brother was an accountant…" 

"Yes?" 

"… who was living with a tennis instructor?" He paused significantly. "A _male_ tennis instructor." 

KITT nodded. "Their names were Jeremy Yeman and Tony Grant. They'd been cohabitating for eight years, three months and twenty-two days at the time we —" 

"And at the time," Michael interrupted again, "did I say _anything_ that indicated I had a problem with that?" 

"Well…" He scanned Michael's face, and the frown deepened. "No. Come to think of it, you didn't."

"I didn't say anything," he continued, holding KITT's gaze with unblinking intensity, "because I didn't have a problem with it. Not as such." He marshalled his words carefully. This had to come out right the first time. "KITT, people — most people, anyway — can't help who they wind up loving, and I can't blame them for finding someone, anyone, who helps get them through the night." He shifted his grip on KITT's hand, tightening it and cementing their connection — _See, I'm touching you, you don't frighten me and you don't disgust me._ "And — I don't blame you, pal. I question your taste, maybe, but I don't blame you." 

KITT was studying him like he was a page of code in a previously unknown language, its symbols only slowly coming clear. "But, you said —" 

He squeezed that artificial hand, and KITT recognized the signal to fall silent. "Yeah, well, people say a lot of things when they're shocked — and scared." _And before they realize that the guy who's doing you cares about a helluva lot more than just what's inside your pants..._ He looked away again, toward the pedestrians drifting by in their own little worlds, then back to the spirit that burned behind those alien eyes upturned to his. "Have you thought this through, KITT? I mean, really thought it through? What happens if somebody decides to target you because you're with him? What happens if they decide you deserve to die because of it?"

KITT's troubled expression cleared, replaced by a far less complicated smile. "Michael, I'm — of course, we haven't had time to talk about that, have we? Attitudes toward homosexuality are considerably different in this time and place." He turned to face Michael completely, his chin tilting upward a fraction of an inch, telegraphing so much pride and confidence in such a small change of orientation. "In any case, I'm functionally immortal, and so is Captain Harkness. We _can't_ die. Nor can we be permanently damaged in any way. And besides…" He glanced down at the palm of his free hand, and Michael, following his gaze, saw pale blue light glowing through the thin leather that concealed it. "I can defend myself now, in ways I couldn't when I was merely a car. Rest assured, nothing short of a nuclear strike would make much difference to us one way or the other — and even that would be merely a temporary setback." 

He eyed KITT warily. "You can't die." 

KITT shook his head. 

"And neither can he?" 

"He's a little over two thousand years old, and no, he can't." 

"Two _thousand_ —?" Michael's mind tried to put that number together with the face and body of the man he'd met less than an hour ago, and failed miserably. He stared in disbelief. "KITT, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?" 

KITT's smile faded again, its brief light lost in limitless sorrow. "A world without you," he said in a small queer voice, and the next thing Michael knew they were coming together, his arms wrapping around KITT's slender back as KITT's arms encircled his waist, clinging to him in silent desperation.  

The rest of the world kept moving by, while they remained in their own small space, locked in a moment far too brief. Michael didn't try to time it, and didn't try to hurry it either: he just held the one he'd dwelled with, and within, for so long, and had thought forever lost, as close as he possibly could. He closed his eyes, absorbing the _feel_ of KITT, the vital presence that had no need of any body at all. Once, when KITT's CPU had been husked from the robotic car, Michael had found what remained of him purely by force of intuition… and this was a little bit like that, a resonance like two wine glasses vibrating on a sympathetic frequency. He'd know his KITT anywhere, with the force of fundamental instinct —  

— and he'd love him anywhere, in any body. It was why, after being pulled through the Rift into the heart of the Hub, he'd taken one look at this two-legged shape, had seen joyous red light in the eyes of a strange machine and heard the music of exultation in its familiar voice — and had known that at last, after so long apart, they'd finally come home to each other. 

It was why Dr. Sato's pronouncement less than a minute later — that he had to go back, and soon, but KITT wouldn't be going with him — had stricken so deep that for a moment he hadn't been able to breathe, afflicted with a pain even deeper than the devastation on KITT's expressive face.

And then, while Torchwood's doctor had been checking Michael's blood pressure and other vitals, Harkness had taken KITT aside — but not far enough that Michael, glancing up, hadn't caught a glimpse of the human's broad hands coming to rest on KITT's narrow waist, and the way Harkness had curved those hands around KITT's jawline to lift up his downcast gaze… and the way Harkness had kissed him on the lips, brief but oh, so telling. Nowhere near far enough to miss how KITT had briefly brightened at the contact, a gleam of genuine warmth through the crushing weight of his grief and despair. 

At the time Michael hadn't known what to think, beyond the impact of shock and the fury that someone would _use_ KITT like that, would take advantage of his innocence… but now, remembering the way Harkness had taken decisive physical action when KITT had been harmed and the way Torchwood's leader had lashed out verbally with such a clear blaze of protective fury in his eyes… well, Michael now knew one thing for sure: that KITT was definitely loved, and that he wasn't going to be alone in this strange new world after all. 

 _But we'll end up alone anyway._ He smiled bitterly and rested his chin atop KITT's blond head, feeling the hum of their own private resonance binding them even closer in ways that flesh and steel could never hope to match. His heart, caught between, burned and throbbed: _I lost you once, oh God, and now I have to let you go all over again… I can't do it! I can't…_  

He thought of Lisa Mallette, the girl back home who was carrying his child. He thought of Jack Harkness, the stranger here and now, who was waiting to welcome KITT back into his arms. And he forced himself to believe that maybe, just maybe, they'd each find a way to go on after all, when only the memory of this priceless bond remained. 


	3. The Apartment

Eventually their bodies parted, but to Michael it felt as if they were still entwined at the deepest level in ways that nobody else could possibly see. Afterwards they walked slowly back toward the Hub, side by side, with KITT's left hand slipped inside the angle of Michael's right arm and covered by Michael's left hand in turn. They didn't say anything; it was enough to simply be together after so long apart, a refreshment to simply absorb each other's silence after being deprived of communion for so long. 

It was easy not to think about the tragedies that had filled the last year for both of them, with KITT's effortless beauty close enough to touch. Michael knew this brief episode wouldn't be anywhere near enough when they were back on opposite sides of the Rift, but talking about that wouldn't change the way things had to be — so instead he drank in KITT's smiles, all the subtleties of sidelong glances and shining upturned gazes, and he treasured up every second of it in the vault of memory, where nobody could ever take it away from him. 

The sun had been down for a while by the time they got back to the towering glass-and-water sculpture that marked the Hub's location, and when they came to a halt in front of it KITT finally spoke: "You must be getting hungry." 

"Yeah, well…" His stomach chose that second to growl sharply, and KITT's laughter was as gorgeous as the rest of him. "I was just about to have lunch when you guys sent that rift through to grab me." 

"Come on." He pressed Michael's arm warmly and started walking again, drawing him further down the promenade. "We can take my motorcycle and —"

"You have a _motorcycle?_ " Michael let himself be led, with a silly little smile on his face. "KITT, you always hated motorcycles!" 

"True, but in this case having one grants me considerable freedom of movement. I can also get easily into and out of places that the main Torchwood SUV can't handle." 

"So you're their mobile scout force, is that it?"

"That's how it usually works out," KITT agreed.  

"I'll bet you're amazingly good at it, too." 

A sleek little smile of self-satisfaction bloomed on that handsome face. "Have I ever been anything less? Now, there's a pub only six or seven minutes away, where they serve the most excellent —" 

But Michael definitely wasn't in the mood to sit in a public venue, where anybody could listen in. "Actually, could we maybe go someplace a little bit more private? The last thing I want is somebody calling in the guys in white coats because we're talking about talking cars, time travel, and super-secret crime fighting techniques." 

KITT looked suitably chastened. "Of course, Michael…" His stride slowed, his head tilting a little to one side, and the circlets in his eyes expanded and contracted more swiftly for a period of maybe fifteen seconds before he blinked and picked up the pace again. "I'll take you to Captain Harkness's permanent suite at the Cardiff Apartments. Nobody will disturb us there." 

"His permanent suite?" Deep in Michael's gut, something twisted uneasily. He stopped in his tracks. "Are you sure that's —" 

"He's offered to stay at the Hub tonight — he says it will give him a chance to catch up on his backlog of paperwork." KITT smiled up at his pilot, reassuring. "It's more like an actual apartment than a hotel: quite comfortable, very private, and exceptionally secure." 

"So," because it was vital to be clear on this point, "you're taking me to _his_ place."

KITT nodded, quirking his left eyebrow in mild exasperation. "Michael, do I really need to go into detail concerning its numerous advantages? As noted, it is comfortably furnished, the soundproofing is admirably efficient, and the building has twenty-four hour security. Furthermore, the suite is regularly scanned for bugs or any other form of surveillance, and its —" 

Michael held up his left hand, palm open, in a signal of defeat. "Okay, okay, I get the picture! As long as your boyfriend doesn't mind —" 

"He's scarcely my 'boyfriend'," KITT sniffed prissily. "And no, he does not. In fact, he suggested it before I could broach the subject." 

"Ah." The obvious question — _If he's not your boyfriend, then just what the hell_ ** _is_** _he?_ — sprang to the tip of Michael's tongue, but he bit it back. This wasn't the time or the place to be asking it. Instead he cast a glance toward the cold sky, full of low grey clouds that reflected the city's glow, and drew a deep breath of the humid air. "Okay, so we know where we're going — but we've got another problem, if you're planning on taking us there on the back of a motorcycle." 

"Oh?" The eyebrow arched again. 

He looked upward again, more emphatically. "I think your forecast systems are out of whack, pal — this doesn't look like the kind of weather to be riding a bike in, especially not when I'm dressed like this." 

"That won't be a problem," KITT said lightly, and started walking again. Michael let himself be drawn. "The motorcycle in question possesses its own inertial shield system. It creates a narrow zone of stable temperature and air flow around itself, contoured to its riders: we could be driving naked through a sub-zero blizzard and you wouldn't feel a thing."

Michael whistled softly. "Wow… welcome to the future."

"Oh, the technology isn't of human manufacture. Toshiko Sato salvaged it off of an alien device that came through the Rift and adapted it to suit our needs. The field has a limited range, so it's not suitable for protecting any area larger than four cubic metres, and of course the power source required to maintain it is…" 

Michael let his partner ramble on as they travelled, his heart swelling with happiness at the revelation that the more things changed, they more they stayed the same. 

************************************************ 

Less than twenty minutes later, after a ride through light rain that had demonstrated the motorcycle's advantages to Michael's complete satisfaction, they were stepping through the door of a fourth floor suite at the Cardiff Apartments, and Michael was being forced to colour himself impressed. 

"Well?" KITT queried, slipping the keycard back into his inside coat pocket as the suite's spot lighting came on without any apparent effort on his part. 

"You were right," Michael admitted, looking around at the tastefully designed modern space with a growing smile. The suite opened up from a small entry alcove into a large living room/dining room combination featuring black leather chairs and a black leather couch, a wide screen TV mounted on the wall, and floor-to-ceiling window-doors leading onto a narrow balcony overlooking a city view. To Michael's right a steel-and-tiled kitchen large enough for two people to work comfortably took up the north-western corner of the suite; to his left, a short hallway led to another open doorway, clearly the bedroom since a corner of the bed in question was just visible, and presumably to the bathroom. The walls were of muted dark beige, with one wall, the western one, painted burgundy; all in all the impression was one of masculine comfort, and of a few old things carefully cherished: a small but elaborately carved wooden box adorned with mother-of-pearl inlays set on the coffee table, a tall and narrow yet sturdy bookcase which held a collection of leather-bound volumes, and an antique clock ticking quietly on the bookcase's top shelf, its ivory face strangely inscrutable. "This is better than any hotel room by a country mile."

KITT smiled. "After having stayed in so many hotels over the years of our partnership, I thought you might appreciate something a little more… homey." He slipped past Michael, heading for the kitchen. "Please, make yourself at home — I'll put on some coffee. I hope you don't mind a Sumatran blend?" 

"A Su-what-tran?" Michael shook his head, amused. "I'm sure it'll be just fine." He glanced around, then crooked his thumb toward the hallway. "I'll just, uh…" 

"By all means," KITT called from inside the kitchen, where Michael could hear him opening cupboards, and Michael discovered that the bathroom (white-tiled, expensively appointed, with a glass-doored shower and tub enclosure large enough for three people) was just as classy as the rest of this place. The soap, when he washed his hands, smelled faintly of sandalwood, and a quick check inside the medicine cabinet revealed no medication whatsoever, only a man's shaving kit (old-fashioned, with a wood-handled razor and a horse hair shaving brush and a metal tin of shaving soap) and a immaculately clean fine-toothed comb that appeared to be made of tortoiseshell. He didn't touch, merely took note of each item, then closed the cabinet silently — or as silently as he could, anyway, quite possibly KITT was capable of hearing the sounds of the oiled hinges or deducing his former driver's activity from where he was standing and how long he'd been there, but he also knew that KITT wouldn't judge him for indulging a lifetime habit of investigative curiosity. 

On the way out of the bathroom he paused in the bedroom doorway to peer inside. The space was small and sparsely furnished — two simple bedside tables, one of which included an alarm clock that looked like it had come from the 1930s along with the table lamp, plus a plain dresser-and-mirror combination — but the four-poster bed was large: decked out with four plush pillows and a darkly rich forest-green comforter, it looked wide and immensely comfortable. For about a half-second he tried to picture KITT's current body on that bed amidst rumpled sheets, naked, pinned down by Harkness's broader bulk and making urgent sexual noises while Harkness's hands and mouth worked him over, not to mention his —

Nope. No way. He just couldn't do it. It made him feel a little bit dizzy to even try, as if the ground had suddenly dropped out from under his feet.

"Michael?" KITT's voice from behind made him spin round, feeling as guilty as if he'd just been caught committing an act of actual voyeurism. The android was gazing at him expectantly from the corner of the kitchen, a plain blue coffee cup in one hand. "Would pizza be all right? Or would you prefer hamburgers?" 

"Well, uh…" That bright friendly gaze was light years away from how KITT probably looked at other times — and at Jack Harkness, to be precise, in the sensually appointed room Michael had just turned away from. Michael had absolutely no question about who usually ended up on the bottom, oddly enough, even if he couldn't begin to imagine the rest of it. "I could go either way, as long as it's food and it gets here pronto."

KITT cocked his head to one side again in that 'accessing' gesture. "Very well, then… let's try something a bit different, shall we? There's this little Greek place on Womanby, one of Cardiff's great underrated treasures in my opinion. I'm placing an order for gyros, Greek salad, chicken kebabs and baklava. How does that sound?"

"Like happiness on a plate," Michael smiled, and wandered back toward where KITT stood gazing into the middle distance, his eyes reflecting some swift internal flow of data. "That's a nice comforter you've got in there." 

"Thank you." He sounded only mildly distracted. "I picked it out myself, when Captain Harkness and I visited the John Lewis department store together on January 3rd of this year."

Which was enough to make Michael stop in his tracks and boggle. "You've gone _shopping_ with him?"

"Why not?" KITT's eyes had returned to their normal pattern of oscillations, and he turned back into the kitchen, still talking: "He loves home furnishing stores, actually — to him they're wildly exotic places."

Wow. _Wow._ "Sounds pretty serious." 

"The shopping, or the mild fetish concerning commercial retail establishments?"

"Both," as he resumed his cautious approach, "but I was talking more about picking out stuff for a shared apartment." 

"This is his personal living space, Michael," KITT chided. "I'm just an occasional — well, come to think of it, he seldom comes here unless he's with me…" A thoughtful pause, and a raised eyebrow. "Make that _never_ comes here unless he's with me." 

Having reached the corner of the kitchen, Michael leaned against the edge of the wall and folded his arms, watching while KITT set about retrieving plates from an upper cupboard. "So, you're living together." 

Which earned him another adorable wrinkle of KITT's nose. "Considering that we spend, on average, one point seven nights per week in this apartment, I'd scarcely call it 'living together'." 

Michael inclined his chin dubiously. "But he spends all of that time here with you." 

Into the cutlery drawer now, for forks and spoons. "Well… yes. As a rule." 

"I'm probably gonna regret asking this, but… what do you do, exactly?" 

"You mean besides having sex?" 

Michael winced dramatically. "See… that's exactly what I meant." 

KITT flashed a fond smile at him, picking up the plates, which now had the cutlery piled on top, and carrying them to the dining room table, where he'd already laid out plain cotton placemats of dark blue. "We talk, of course — Captain Harkness is full of fascinating stories about his various adventures. Sometimes we sit on the couch together and read, without talking much at all. Occasionally we cook — he knows some recipes for cakes and cookies that are spectacularly delicious. On one occasion, we pushed back the furniture and he taught me the basics of Kaldouran tri-helical wrestling." He shook his head with a wry smirk. "I'm fairly sure the occupants of the suite downstairs didn't appreciate _that_ in the least."

Michael, who'd turned in place to watch the android setting the table, shook his head and grinned. KITT paused, scowling. "What's so funny?" 

"Nothing! It's just…" He shook his head again, and this time he couldn't quite keep the glee out of his voice: "Congratulations, buddy — you've been successfully domesticated!"

The expression on KITT's face as he went back to laying out the forks suggested he was quite sure that his former partner had gone mad. Michael didn't particularly care, because the tightly wound spring of tension deep in his gut was finally, for the first time since he'd thrown himself into the rift, beginning to relax and unbind. He glanced around at the apartment again, not just seeing the surface details but breathing in the atmosphere of the place, and decided that if KITT wasn't comfortable with the word _boyfriend_ for whatever reason, that was perfectly fine by him.

After all — well. Picking out bed linens, baking cookies, and learning how to wrestle… _that_ was the kind of stuff that really counted, when you got right down to brass tacks.


	4. The Table

The coffee turned out to be delicious: dark and smokey on the tongue, and smooth as silk going down. Michael took his black, the way he always had, while KITT loaded his own mug with flavoured vanilla creamer from the fridge, and they sat across from each other at the dining room table reminiscing about old times, the time before KITT's automobile body had been thrown through the Rift — a much safer subject, in Michael's opinion, than the emotional minefield of the past year spent apart.

An easy subject too, because hearing KITT's voice brought so much of it back: the days and nights on the road, the crashes through walls and the Turbo Boosts, the months and years of sharing everything with each other, all the time… and never feeling crowded or pressured, because they interlocked so perfectly. They laughed a helluva lot more than Michael would have expected given that this was going to be their last night together ever, and when the Greek food was delivered they worked their way through it in record time — apparently trans-dimensional travel worked up quit an appetite, and KITT had been absolutely right about the restaurant's quality. 

In the aftermath of empty takeout containers and in a brief interlude of contented silence, while Michael was halfway through his piece of honey-sweet baklava, KITT carved a forkful out of his own dessert and casually remarked: "You know, it occurs to me you never had sex with a woman while you were in the car." Then continued, as if Michael hadn't just nearly choked on a mouthful of pastry: "Why not?" 

"I — guh —" He got his breathing under control, swallowed, and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin before unleashing a glare. " _Jesus,_ KITT —" 

KITT blinked, all doe-eyed innocence — but there was a gleam of sly mischief beneath that Michael was well familiar with. "It's a perfectly legitimate question." 

"That's why you brought me here?" Michael accused. "To bushwhack me over a plate of Greek food?" 

"I haven't had the opportunity in three hundred and sixty-eight days, more or less." He ate his mouthful of baklava demurely, his eyes still twinkling at Michael across the table, and once he'd swallowed it he added: "To be honest, I've dearly missed it."

Which was enough to make Michael drop his posture of indignation, because it provoked a wave of grief too profound to be covered with a ready quip. He gazed for a long moment, holding KITT's eyes, and when the twinkle had faded to a questioning expression he found he could barely speak: "So did I, buddy. God — you have no idea…" 

"Don't I?" His voice was quiet, his gaze equally direct, and Michael found he had to look away because if he didn't, the combined weight of their shared emotions would reach critical mass — and he wasn't going to cry, he _wasn't_ , because KITT deserved so much better than that. 

"Yeah." He looked at his baklava again, found his appetite completely gone, and put down his fork. "Yeah, I guess you do." 

In all the years of their partnership he'd heard this level of pain in KITT's voice precisely twice — once after the robot's destruction in a pit of acid, and once after the horrible death of a little girl named Kaylene Griffith. "If I'd known I couldn't go back with you, I never would have brought you —" 

But Michael shook his head decisively. "No," he stated, and met KITT's distressed gaze again, this time with steely determination. "It was worth it, pal — you've gotta believe that. Being here with you, even if it's only for a few hours…" He let his anguish and his joy break through in a smile wide enough to hold the tears at bay. "It's given me a chance to say goodbye. That's more than I'd ever hoped for." 

KITT put down his own fork and set his plate aside, then leaned both elbows on the edge of the table and clasped his hands lightly in front of him, just below his chin. He gazed. He sighed. He bowed his head, his eyes slipping closed. There was a charming informality to the gesture, an unbending from the relentless poise he'd exhibited up to this point, that slipped right into Michael's heart and twisted like a knife. "Oh, Michael… I could have lived without saying goodbye. I always knew the day might come when you'd be suddenly taken away from me. What I'm grateful for is the chance to know that you're alive, and that you're happy." A sharp glance. "You _are_ happy, aren't you?"

Michael had to nod. "I've got a fiancée — Lisa Mallette. And we've got a little girl on the way." 

KITT's smile was full of bright relief. "I'm glad to hear it! My biggest fear was that you'd be alone." 

Which made Michael laugh in spite of the weighty subject matter. "Oh, so that's it: you think I can't take care of myself?" 

"I know that you're happiest when you're working with other people," KITT clarified. "How are things at the Foundation?" His gaze grew eager. "How's Bonnie?" 

"Whoa, whoa, back up!" He held up his hand, forestalling a rush of questions, and his heart cracked when he saw the perplexity in KITT's eyes — and the awareness, from the tone of those four single syllables, that the answer was not going to be a happy one. "It's not that simple…" 

KITT's eyes widened. "Michael?"

He mirrored KITT's posture: plate pushed aside, elbows on the table, hands tightly clasped on the placemat. "Things changed, KITT. And not for the better. When you disappeared through that Rift…" He looked down at his own hands, the fingers locked together, and tried to bite back the sound of tears. "It hurt. A lot. I thought I'd lost you forever." 

"But Bonnie rebuilt me," KITT murmured, not quite a question. 

Michael nodded once. "She had your most recent backups to start from, and Yamato and Van Voorman came back to help out. They put you back together again…" 

_But it really wasn't you, was it? You were here: working with this alien-buster team, making a new life, picking out sheets and pillowcases and comforters with a two-thousand-year-old man… so you could share his bed..._

He swallowed the pain. He carried on. "… and it was good. For a while." It was hard even to go near those memories, to recall the dark final days of their partnership. "Then Devon died," which prompted a sharp intake of breath from KITT, "and I got shot, and the Foundation… the Foundation changed, buddy. Devon would never have taken you away from me the way they did — no contact at all, not even a chance to say goodbye. Bonnie told me that you were still alive, but when they found out she'd been talking to me they fired her too, and that was the last either of us ever heard of you." 

He looked down at his hands again, the fingers white-knuckled, and let the ache of memory fill his voice: "Every day, my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night are thoughts of you. Not knowing where you are, or what's happening to you, or even if you're still alive… it kills me. But the ass in charge of the new Foundation had said things to the effect that if I tried to find you they might decide you were a liability that needed to be destroyed, so I kept out of it, even though all I wanted was to break down every last wall that stood between us."

KITT was silent for almost two seconds — an eternity, in computer processing time. "And you don't know if — the new version of me, is still compiling?" 

He shook his head curtly. "I never found out."  

"Oh, Michael…" The words were as soft as velvet. "I'm so very sorry." 

He tried to muster a smile. "But, hey… I met Lisa, and we're having a little girl in the fall. Couldn't have done that while I was running around the country with you, huh?" 

"I'm just glad you weren't killed in the line of duty," KITT said firmly. "Wherever my other version is, I'm sure he's equally grateful." 

"I'll find him." He raised his eyes to KITT's sorrowful face and spoke the words with the binding force of a vow: "I'll find _you_ , and we'll get you the hell out of whatever dark hole they've locked you away in."

"You're assuming my alternate version hasn't been partnered with someone else," KITT pointed out. "And possibly had his memory erased into the bargain." 

But Michael shook his head. "Bonnie says they'd have to be crazy to try messing with your memory — wiping out too much of it could critically destabilize your programming matrix." 

"From the sound of it, the people in question might not care about that very much."

Which was also Michael's darkest fear. He pushed it firmly aside: KITT was _here_ , and _now_ , and there'd be time to suffer the agony of uncertainty later. "C'mon, you know that between Bonnie and me there's nothing we can't do, right?" 

KITT sighed again, shaking his head ruefully. "I also know you have a child on the way, and that to risk yourself on a fool's quest would be pointless. Nothing can hurt me, Michael — you know that. You should just let it —" 

"Don't." This time it was barely contained fury that clipped the end of each word, provoking a startled glance from the android across the table. "Don't lie to me, KITT. You think I've forgotten what happened to you in that acid pit? You think I've forgotten the weeks after Kaylene Griffith died?" He had to pause, to get his breathing under control before he started screaming — which he didn't. Barely. "Hell, you think I can't see what's going on inside you _right now?_ You suffer and bleed just like anybody else, and if I can do anything to stop it, you know I will!" 

"I…" He stared, momentarily speechless. Good. Michael wasn't in the mood for a long involved argument on this particular subject.  

"I'm just glad you've got somebody here who loves you," he stated bluntly. "Knowing he's by your side… let's just say I'll sleep a lot better at night." 

KITT smiled, a touch sadly. "Captain Harkness comes from a time and place where polyamory is the norm. He loves a great many people, to varying degrees. I'm not even near the top of his list." 

Michael scowled a question: "Poly-whattery?" 

"A romantic orientation in which one's love is not reserved for a single person," KITT specified, "but rather distributed over an extended network of love interests." 

Which was all well and good, but — "KITT, he was watching us through the closed circuit TV system when we had our argument, and do you know what he did when I went back upstairs?" KITT cocked a quizzical eyebrow, so Michael went on: "He did his level best to punch my lights out, and you didn't get to see him tearing me a new asshole afterwards because I'd made you cry." He glanced back over his shoulder toward the bedroom, made comfortable by little touches mutually found and brought back to the shared nest, then refocussed on KITT's face with conviction. "I know he'll take care of you. That's good enough for me."

"And what about you, Michael?" KITT was capable of being equally blunt. "Who'll take care of _you?_ " 

"Lisa," he replied instantly. "And pretty soon we'll have a baby girl to look after, so don't you go worrying about how I'll find ways to keep myself occupied." 

A sardonic quirk of a smile. "When you're not busy looking for me, you mean?" 

The twist in Michael's heart became a pang. "I… it may take a while." Because the situation with Lisa imposed a different set of priorities, and KITT, with his usual talent for cutting to the chase, had just made that perfectly clear. "But I'll do it. Whatever it takes, I'll do it." 

KITT nodded, and this time the quality of his smile was wistful. "I wish I could see her — both your wife and your child."

"I wish they could meet you too, buddy." He had to laugh, remembering all the times he'd poured out his heart to the quiet strong woman who'd refused to leave his side. "Lisa must be getting pretty sick of all the stories I tell about you — maybe if she met you, she'd realize that I'm not exaggerating when I call you the best, brightest, smartest person I've ever met." 

KITT reached across the table, between two empty cartons — shyly, but his hand slipped over Michael's clenched fists and covered them with reassuring pressure, cool as the rain. "Thank you. You know the feeling is mutual, don't you?" 

Michael smiled back and opened his hands, turning his right hand to return the clasp of KITT's fingers. "You know it, partner. I wouldn't have missed those seven and a half years for the world." 

"Will you do me one favour, then?"

He nodded instantly. "Anything." 

KITT's focus was laser-like in its intensity. "Don't throw away the chance you have for happiness. I wouldn't want that — and neither would my counterpart, assuming he's still in existence."  

"I won't." He met that unblinking gaze and covered their joined hands with his left. "But I'm not going to throw you away, either. You mean —" No tears, damn it, no tears! "You mean too damned much to me, KITT. You're the other half of me. You always have been. One way or another, I'll find you — and I'll bring you home." 

"Thank you, Michael." He looked down at their clasped hands and held on tighter. "Will you grant me one other request?" 

He couldn't keep the gruffness from his voice: "Whatever you want." 

"Just — be with me tonight?" When Michael looked up in surprise, KITT continued in a rush: "I remember all the times I held you in my cabin, keeping watch over you while you slept… could we do that again, one last time? Please?"

After a moment of seriously considering that proposal — because this wasn't a car, this was a body so close to human, with arms and legs to entwine, and eyes to gaze, and lips that could smile or kiss — Michael nodded and offered a smile of reassurance. "Yeah." He squeezed KITT's fingers warmly. "Yeah. I'd like that." 

KITT's answering smile was radiant, and so devastatingly beautiful that it outright broke Michael's already bruised and battered heart. 


	5. The Bedroom

Before they did anything else, KITT insisted on clearing up the mess on the dining room table and putting the kitchen in order. Michael pitched in, dumping cartons in the gleaming steel garbage can and helping wash up the dishes and the cutlery in a sink full of hot soapy water. When everything was neatly squared away KITT smiled up at him, and took his hand, and led him into the bedroom where the wide comfortable bed beckoned in the bedside lamp's warm yellow glow — and threatened too, because Michael couldn't quite get past the fact that he was going to be with KITT, in _this_ bed, the bed KITT regularly shared with Jack Harkness… 

… and he was sure that when Harkness was in it, there wasn't a relatively innocent 'I just want to hold you and watch you while you sleep' vibe going on, either. He didn't want to think of all the stories this bed could tell, all the ghosts of passion that clung to its physical substance. Consequently he leaned against the door post with folded arms and watched with more than a trace of uneasiness while KITT neatly stripped back the comforter and the top level of sheets, in the manner of someone who'd done so a thousand times before. "You sure he's gonna be okay with this?" 

KITT offered a glance of affectionate exasperation while he removed two of the pillows from the bed — of course he remembered that Michael preferred to sleep with just one — and crossed two metres to the closet on Michael's immediate left, to store them away. "Yes, I'm quite sure. Would you like to ask him yourself?" 

"Uh…" Michael could just imagine how that conversation would go: _Hey, Jack, listen… I want to sleep with KITT tonight, can we use your bed? Great, thanks!_ The prospect of being drawn and quartered was far more appealing. 

Of course KITT read the quality of his expression instantly, and addressed it with typical matter-of-factness while tucking the pillows onto an upper shelf. "Even assuming you were planning to make use of me sexually —" 

"Which I'm not!" Michael could feel his eyes widening in alarm: _Oh God, no!_ That was just too weird to even contemplate! 

"— Captain Harkness has made it abundantly clear that I'm free to engage in such behaviour with anyone who 'gets my motor running', as he so concisely puts it." He slid the closet doors closed again and turned back toward the bed, still speaking conversationally. "In that respect I'm as unencumbered as he is."

"Wait, so…" Two competing thoughts became a pile-up in Michael's brain. With difficulty, he managed to sort out which one to address first: "He sleeps around on you?" 

KITT paused in the act of leaning in to arrange the two remaining pillows long enough to cast a trace of a frown over his shoulder. "Of course he does — it's only to be expected, given his cultural background. He's both polyamorous _and_ pansexual." 

Okay, that was sort of an answer — enough to get on with, anyway. The next question, though… Michael swallowed against the tightness in his throat. "And — the part about 'getting your motor running'… please, don't tell me _I'm_ …"

KITT plumped the pillows fussily. "I would welcome any form of interaction with you, Michael — including that, if you expressed the desire. However, given that you're quite possibly the most relentlessly heterosexual individual I've ever encountered —" 

"KITT —" He pushed away from the door post and held up both hands, palms out, in a warding-off gesture. "I _can't_. I'd do anything for you, you know that, but that's not even on the —" 

The android straightened and and turned to face him fully, offering a smile full of wry kindness. "Michael. I'm well aware of your proclivities. Rest assured that I don't expect anything like that from you — only that if you changed your mind, I'd be more than willing." 

Warily, slowly, Michael lowered his hands. KITT remained where he was, gracefully non-confrontational, wearing the expression that went with his tone of voice — _Really, Michael, did you honestly think I was asking you to have sex with me? —_ while Michael eyed him up and down: slim, elegant, immaculately dressed, perfectly poised — and definitely male, with a handsomeness that verged on feminine beauty. "Were you always gay, and I just never noticed?" 

KITT's shook his head slightly, still looking amused. "I was, in the strictest sense of the term, asexual: I possessed no genitals, no hormones, and consequently no intuitive understanding of sexuality whatsoever." 

He inclined his chin questioningly. "But you do now."

"The Captain has taught me a great deal in that respect, yes." 

Drawing a cautious breath through his nose, Michael could pick up a scent that wasn't Essence of Hotel Room: the faintest trace of a pleasant masculine musk, lingering in the air. "Is he — good to you? I mean, he does things _for_ you, right? — he doesn't just… use you?" 

Wrong question: KITT's shoulders stiffened, his tone growing as cool as his gaze while pale blue light flowed in circuit board patterns up his throat to his jawline, the way it had during their argument in the lower levels of the Hub. "If you must know, he's a singularly generous and considerate lover: passionate, masterful, and highly detail-oriented when he has a mind to be. I have no cause for complaint whatsoever." 

"KITT, I didn't mean —" KITT gave him a tart look from under lowered eyebrows, and he sighed. "Okay, maybe I _did_ mean… it's just, this isn't exactly something you've had a lot of experience with, right? I don't want you getting hurt." 

He tipped his chin up a quarter inch, looking archly down his nose. "Considering the degree of trust I've put in him over the past several months, it's a little late to be worried about that." 

Michael nodded, conceding the point, but he wasn't done yet. "Don't take this the wrong way, but he doesn't strike me as being the particularly trustworthy type." 

After a second of cold staring, KITT's frostiness thawed a few degrees. "He isn't, in many respects. He spent a number of years as a con man, and he's still capable of lying with great ease and facility. But I've seen how he takes care of those he considers himself responsible for — and as a working member of Torchwood Three, I fall within that range of responsibility. I have no doubt that if the situation warranted it, he'd sacrifice me without hesitation for the greater good. On the other hand, I also have no doubt that he wouldn't do so unless he'd exhausted every other alternative." 

"That's not particularly comforting," Michael stated flatly. 

"Have I ever favoured a comforting lie over the cold hard truth?" KITT countered. 

"You did when it came to Kaylene." 

KITT closed his eyes, almost visibly counted to ten in binary, then settled his ass on the bed and took hold of the mattress's edge with both hands. "Nobody tells a terrified eight-year-old girl that she's going to die within the next three minutes," he said evenly, "not unless they're completely heartless. Besides, your concern is baseless if you're basing it entirely on the presumption that I'm sexually inexperienced. As a matter of fact —" 

 _Abort! Abort!_ "KITT, I'm not sure I really wanna know."

He opened his eyes again and looked up at his former driver, his lips quirking in something closer to amusement. "Very well, then. Take it as read that I've had the opportunity to sample numerous sexual partners, of various genders and sexual paraphil—" 

No. No, no, _no_. "Numerous? How many are we talking, here?" 

A raised eyebrow. "I thought you didn't want to know."

"I've changed my mind," Michael glared. 

"Seventeen." 

" _Seven—!"_ He stared, disbelief rapidly turning to indignation. "You've only had that body for a year!" 

"Very true." KITT appeared completely unruffled. "However, I've also enjoyed multiple visits to The Fallen Angel, a Cardiff establishment catering to those who wish to experience sexual encounters without any subsequent social attachments." 

Back to disbelief again. "You went to a swinger's club." 

" _We_ went to a swinger's club," KITT corrected. "Captain Harkness was my sponsor, and he also supervised each evening's set of encounters." 

"I… that's…" He tried to find words adequate to expressing his emotions, and failed. "I really wish you hadn't told me that." 

A cock of that blond head. "Why not? You wanted to know the details. And need I remind you that you, yourself, had sex with multiple women on no less than —" 

"Twice!" Michael cried. "I had a threesome a grand total of twice!" 

"And parted company with the women in question the morning after, on friendly terms but with no promise of future contact," KITT concluded. "I fail to see how that differs significantly from my own experiences." 

"How many people did you have sex with at once?" Michael demanded. 

KITT responded without hesitation: "Sometimes two, often three, and occasionally up to six — if you don't count the Captain, who was always present but remained fully clothed and confined himself to watching for the most part." 

"There!" He pounced with righteous outrage. " _That's_ the difference!" 

The expression on KITT's face told him instantly that he'd gone too far, had stabbed to a place KITT's mental armour didn't cover, but the android's voice, when he finally replied, was level: "What I did, I did of my own free will. I wanted to learn more about human sexuality, and The Fallen Angel proved an efficient way to collect large quantities of data in a short amount of time. I was never alone: Captain Harkness was always with me, supervising the sexual play and ensuring that I was well-treated. In fact, the end result of the exercise was an overall deepening of the bond of trust between us." 

Angry incredulity was rapidly becoming Michael's default setting. "He took you to a place where other people had sex with you, and you're telling me that made you trust him _more?_ " 

"That's exactly what I'm saying." He studied Michael keenly, the patterns of crimson light in his eyes telegraphing distress. "Do you want me to take you back to the Hub?" 

"I — what?" He stared, nonplussed. "No!" 

"Would you like me to go back to the living room, then? You're still welcome to use the bed." 

"KITT…" And just like that his anger crashed, because — aw _hell_ , he'd walked back into KITT's life and what was the first thing he did? He trashed it. He'd done it in the Hub, and now he was doing it again — and this was KITT, KITT _always_ had a good reason for everything he did. Therefore he had to have an equally good reason for this, however strange it might look or sound at first glance. 

He met the android's unblinking gaze and consciously drained some of the aggressive stiffness from his own shoulders. He sighed, and approached the bed, and sat himself down on the mattress beside KITT's left hand, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and clasp his own hands lightly between them. "No," he said quietly, "that's not what I meant. I just… I guess the future is turning out to be a lot stranger than I expected."

KITT's gaze had followed him like a hawk, and he still hadn't blinked. "Have I lost your respect?" 

"Never." Michael offered a sidelong smile of apology. "C'mon, give me a break, huh? I only found out you were gay —"

"Functionally bisexual, actually —" 

"— a couple of hours ago, and that you're in a swinging relationship — what, less than five minutes ago? It's gonna take me some time to adjust." He looked at the carpet between his stocking feet and huffed a soft laugh. "Y'know, I always would've pegged you as the buttoned-down conservative type, not the rip-off-all-your-clothes-and-get-freaky-on-a-Saturday-night type." 

"It's nothing like that, really," KITT said, and the tone of his voice told Michael everything: all had been forgiven. Of course it had. KITT had never failed to forgive even his worst trespasses. "Clubs like The Fallen Angel are very highly regulated. I daresay their system of etiquette would put a Regency high society ball to shame." 

"Speaking of freaky —" He straightened, turned at the waist with only the tiniest wince as the damaged muscles in his lower back pulled, and gestured at the flow of light along KITT's jawline. "What the hell is this?" 

"Subcutaneous ionic energy channels," KITT explained, which wasn't much of an explanation at all. "I'm afraid they have a tendency to flare up whenever I experience strong emotions, particularly negative ones."

Michael narrowed his eyes. "You're not about to go nuclear on me, are you?" 

"Hardly," KITT scoffed.

"Then what're they for?"

KITT brightened at once: he loved being enlightening. "This body runs on ionic energy generated by two cold fusion reactors located in my chest, roughly where a human's heart would be. The markings in question are under the control of an appearance management interface circuit, but we haven't been able to determine their precise purpose beyond their function as emotional status indicators. The patterns are really quite beautiful — would you like to see them?" 

"Sure." It was an odd offer, but only on the surface — KITT had always been proud of his appearance, and especially proud of the pride Michael took in his physical beauty. He rose to his feet and took a step away from the bed, turned to face Michael, then unbuttoned his white cotton dress shirt and stripped it off his shoulders, revealing — 

Michael couldn't help but stare, amazed and impressed. KITT was like a living work of modern art, his pale torso and arms covered in large angular circuit patterns that throbbed and flowed with currents of clean blue light. When he turned away to hang the shirt neatly on the clothes tree next to the closet Michael could see that the patterns ran down his back as well, disappearing into the waistband of his black dress pants, but when KITT made as if to open the button of those pants Michael held up a warning hand. "That's far enough."

KITT turned to face him again, unselfconscious in his partial nakedness. "The rest of my body is similarly adorned — and anatomically correct, I assure you." 

Which made Michael wince. "I really didn't need to know that." 

"You weren't the least bit curious?" 

"KITT, you're hanging out in sex clubs — I'd pretty much guessed that you're not built like a Ken doll down there." He hesitated for a second, weighing desire against potential offence and the possibility of opening up a really big can of worms, then reached out with his right hand to indicate he wanted to touch. "Can I —?" 

"Of course you may." KITT waited while he levered himself off the bed and came closer, gazing up at him with perfect trust and openness as he hesitated again, then brought his fingertips to the patterns on KITT's left side. At the touch of Michael's fingers he closed his eyes, and smiled, and inhaled a soft breath. "Oh my. That feels…"

He stopped cold. "Feels… what?" 

"When you touched me before, I couldn't feel it. Now… you're warm. So very warm." He opened his eyes again, their cold black depths full of affection — and an invitation. "Please, continue!"

So Michael did, walking slowly around him at close range, touching his side, his bicep, the curve of one slender shoulder and the strong column of his spine: all of it cool and smooth, the channels of energy conveying the tiniest hum to his careful fingertips. He even dared to stroke his fingers briefly through KITT's hair, from temple to base of skull: it was thick and silky, the four-inch-long tendrils that trailed down the nape of his neck delicately waved. When he'd come back round to the front again he saw that KITT's eyes had drifted closed, and that he was smiling faintly. "Wow. That's… pretty damned amazing."

"Thank you." He opened his eyes and scanned Michael up and down, overtly curious. "May I see your scar? From the bullet? You said you were shot…" 

Michael didn't like to think about the injury that had cut off so big a part of his life, but KITT had been so open with him — it wasn't fair to offer anything less in return. So he nodded and pulled his polo shirt off over his head, tossed it onto the bedside table, then turned to show KITT his back — and the still-red mark, three inches long, just above the waistline of his jeans on the left side. "It didn't hit the spine, but it did a lot of nerve and muscle damage. For a long time I couldn't even turn in that direction, and now —" He demonstrated, twisting at the waist, first right, then left, to show that his range of movement was restricted on that side. "It's not as bad, but it still disqualifies me for field work."

KITT gazed in silence for a long time. Michael heard him step close, then felt the touch of cool fingertips on the wound. "Oh," he said softly, "Michael…" The soft sound of a kiss pressed to those fingertips, which then ran lightly over the scar. "I'm sorry. You must have been devastated." 

The intimacy of that touch sent a mild shock up and down Michael's spine, and left his skin tingling. It wasn't sexual excitement — but it _was_ excitement, the exultation of being loved and caressed by one who was loved equally deeply in return. For an instant it felt like Harkness was there with them, and Michael wanted to put the question to him: _Do you really understand what you've got here? How damned_ ** _priceless_** _he is? When you touch him, do you do it with this kind of love?_  

 _Does he?_  

"KITT?"  

"Yes?" 

"Do you —" It wasn't his business. At the same time, it totally was, because of all they'd been to each other for so many years. He stared resolutely at his own reflection in the dresser's mirror, bruised jaw and all, and at KITT behind him, his gaze on the small of his former partner's back. "About Jack Harkness. Do you love him?" 

KITT's fingers paused on the scar. He was silent for a long moment, and Michael could see swift mental processes mirrored in his downturned eyes. "Yes," he said at last, quietly, "I suppose I do, in a way. He's an exceptional man: courageous, quick-witted, a cunning warrior and a natural leader. He grants his sexual favours easily, but reserves his true devotion for a select few. It's been a privilege to serve under him, in every way. In fact, he reminds me of you in several key respects." He closed his eyes, and this time the kiss was applied directly to Michael's left shoulderblade, swift and almost shy. "But he's not you. He could never be you."

Michael's heart swelled into his throat. He turned in place, to look directly down into KITT's upturned face, and posed a quiet but heartfelt question: "Why don't you take your own advice about not giving up a chance for happiness, huh?" 

"It's not like that at all." He met Michael's gaze calmly and directly. A scent rose off of him, warm and delicious in ways that were only tangentially related to human attractiveness. "I'm assuming that you and Lisa are in a committed monogamous relationship?" Michael nodded, and he continued: "While I have no doubt that Captain Harkness holds me in professional esteem, and even views me with a certain amount of affection, there are others he cares about far more deeply than he'll ever care for me. I'm… a convenience for him, I suppose and it amuses him to take a role in my education when it comes to being humanoid."

Michael shook his head decisively. "Uh-uh. No way. There's a helluva lot more to it than that. You didn't see the way he laid into me in his office, and have you checked out this bruise lately?" 

KITT's gaze flickered to the left side of Michael's jaw, which had indeed recorded Harkness's rage in dark blue clarity. "Did I mention that he has a tendency to be passionate about everything? I'm not foolish enough to mistake that general enthusiasm for anything more significant." 

It was Michael's turn to give KITT the _Oh, come on!_ look. "Where does he live when he's not here? In this apartment?"

"He doesn't have another place of residence — he usually resides at the Hub." 

"And you're the only one he lets in here?" 

"As far as I know, yes." 

"Who a guy chooses to spend his downtime with says a lot about him — and how he feels about the person he lets into that part of his life." 

"He finds the occasional foray into domesticity pleasingly exotic," KITT retorted. "That doesn't necessarily imply anything more significant."

Michael scowled. Why was KITT fighting this so hard? "So… you admit that you love him, but you don't think he loves you? If that's the case, why are you even with him?" 

KITT shrugged, the tiniest twitch of his shoulders. "He teaches me things I need to know. I enjoy his company, and he seems to enjoy mine. We've proven highly compatible on a personal and sexual level. Surely some human relationships are built on far less?"

"Maybe." Michael's hands itched to reach out and take hold of KITT's upper arms. He let them, infusing his voice with the full force of his urgency: "But you deserve more — a lot more. And frankly, I think you've already got it."  

KITT's smile was indulgent. "I sincerely doubt that. Captain Harkness isn't a great believer in commitment. Fortunately I'm already quite content with what he's willing to provide — and rest assured that I'm preparing myself for the day when he inevitably tires of me in those respects." 

"Yeah?" Suddenly he was tired to his bones, but he was careful not to let any trace of that seep through: this was a conversation that needed to be had, and time was running out. "So what's the plan?" 

KITT looked right into the soul of him, then glanced down and laid his open hands lightly to Michael's bare stomach. "Get into bed," he said softly, "and if you can stay awake long enough, I'll tell you."

Michael had to smile, because apparently some things never changed. "I'll hold you to that," he teased, and gave KITT's biceps a quick squeeze before letting go of him and turning toward the bed — still wide, still a bit intimidating, and, as it turned out, even more comfortable than it looked. 


	6. The Bed

KITT picked up Michael's discarded shirt and hung it up next to his own on the clothes tree, while the lights in the rest of the apartment extinguished themselves silently; Michael wondered briefly, as he slipped between the bed's soft sheets still clad in jeans and socks, whether that was some funky futuristic function that all homes possessed now or if KITT himself was the controller. He settled down on his right side and laid his head on the pillow, watching drowsily as KITT came to join him. "Neat trick…"

"Meaning?" 

"The lights."

"Oh, that." KITT lifted the covers to slide underneath them, lying down on his left side a few inches away from his former partner. In the shadows of his face, carved from the lamp's yellow glow behind him, his ebony eyes shone with delicate ever-changing inscriptions as red as lava. "They're wired to respond to my wifi commands. So is the coffee maker, actually, which comes in handy first thing in the morning." 

Michael smiled at him, feeling more warm and comfortable with every passing second. "So neither of you has to get out of bed to make coffee, huh?" KITT nodded, and his smile became a grin. "Pretty smart." 

"Captain Harkness likes his creature comforts," KITT agreed. 

"Speaking of which…" Michael shifted to tuck his right arm under the pillow, then fixed KITT with a questioning gaze. "This plan of yours?" 

KITT smiled with cool competence. "Oh, yes... well, I anticipate that whatever the state of my non-professional relationship with the Captain, Torchwood will always have need of my services when it comes to data extraction, infiltration, and combat applications. In fact, I have no doubt that —"  

Michael swallowed a yawn, and KITT paused. "S'okay, buddy. Sorry. You were saying?"

"I was saying that I have no doubt that the usefulness of my skills will outweigh any emotional awkwardness that might attend a —" 

This time the yawn refused to be contained, and nearly split Michael's skull in half. "No," he protested in response to KITT's raised eyebrows, "it's — Then promptly yawned again. "Jesus…!" 

But KITT nodded as if this was something he'd expected. "Don't be alarmed. It's called a Rift Crash — your body is finally reacting to the cumulative stress of having crossed the dimensional barrier and of remaining subtly out of phase with this timeline." 

"Gee, thanks," Michael quipped, then smothered another yawn in his pillow. "That clears _everything_ up." 

"Rift travel tends to be quite physically exhausting," KITT summarized. "Go to sleep, Michael. I'll be right here when you wake up." 

The whole room was rapidly growing dark in Michael's vision. He couldn't keep his eyes open. "Promise…?"

He could see the bright flash of KITT's smile though, and feel the android's right hand laid lightly over his left where it rested on the mattress between them. "Wild horses couldn't drag me away." 

 _How about a call from Jack Harkness?_ was Michael's last thought, just before everything slipped away.

*****************************************************

A small part of him was calm and relaxed, aware of being wrapped in warm softness and of a smaller body enfolded in his arms. But the rest of him… 

_The punch was so fast, so hard and so unexpected that it sent him staggering: his injured back spasmed and folded, and he found himself down on one knee before he could blink. For a half-second all he saw was stars; then hard hands fisted themselves in the soft leather of his jacket just below each shoulder, and he cracked open his eyelids to see Jack Harkness's snarling face looming over him, his pale eyes on fire with rage._

_"Get up," Harkness hissed, then proceeded to haul him bodily back onto his feet again before letting him go with a contemptuous shove that nearly unbalanced him again. "My office._ **_Now_ ** _." He turned on his heel and strode away past the computer stations, waves of almost visible fury seething off him, and Michael, after a wary glance in the direction of a wide-eyed and closed-mouthed Toshiko Sato, elected to play follow the leader._

_Harkness didn't even wait until he was fully through the doors to roar a question: "What the_ ** _hell_** _were you thinking?"_  

 _Michael stopped and stood his ground with a glare. "I don't know what you're —"_  

 _"I saw what you just said to him." A dramatic sweep of his left hand. "The whole thing! And let me tell you, right now the thought of putting a bullet through your big dumb skull is really —"_  

 _Michael had seen that look on men's faces before. He had no doubt that Harkness meant every word he said, but seriously, what the ever-loving_ ** _fuck?_** _He held out his own right hand in warning. "Listen, I don't know who you think you —"_  

 _"No, scratch that," Harkness snapped, "because you weren't thinking at all!" He turned away for a second, hands planted on his hips, every muscle radiating explosive tension, before spinning to face Michael again with an expression both aggressive and oddly… pleading? "_ ** _He loves you!_** _Do you realize that? For the past year, all he's wanted, really wanted, was to be reunited with you — everything else was a placeholder while he waited for us to find a way to get him back home. And now he's found you, the one he's been yearning for — and what do you do? You turn around and spit in his face!"_  

 _Every one of those words was true, too, and Michael knew it — and that truth unleashed an inner wave of pure misery, misery that expressed itself as defensiveness: "Y'know, I didn't exactly expect —"_  

 _"What?" The rage was back full-force, but Michael wasn't mistaken about the underlying pain. "You didn't think that he'd take a bit of heart's ease while he ached for you, every day and every night? I've seen him cry over you a hundred times, but if I'd thought for one second that_ ** _you'd_** _make_ ** _him_** _cry I would've locked you away in a cell down in the Vault the second you came through the Rift — locked you up and thrown away the key!" Harkness took a step nearer, his voice falling to a venomous growl as he stabbed a forefinger at Michael's chest: "You hurt him over a kiss —_ ** _one kiss_** _, compared to all the love he's been saving up to give to you. He deserves better than that. He deserves better than_ ** _you_** _. And when you fuck off back home I'm the one who's going to have to pick up the pieces of his heart and put them back together again!"_  

_Staring into those hot blue eyes, so full of ferocious protectiveness, Michael experienced a lightning strike of revelation that stuck him dumb:_ **_He cares about KITT. He's not just fucking him: he really, genuinely cares._ ** _That realization turned the whole situation ninety degrees, and left Michael's brain racing to play catch-up._

_Harkness was still holding Michael's gaze, unblinking. "Just answer me one question: Did you ever care about him?"_

_Which Michael answered with a quiet ferocity of his own: "I'd die for him. Without a second's hesitation."_

_Harkness weighed that in the balance for a tense span of seconds… then finally nodded. "All right. Fine. Then you owe it to him to make this right." He strode past Michael to a computer screen mounted on the wall behind his desk, where he tapped in a few commands before announcing: "He's left the Hub — Tosh'll provide you with instructions on where to find him. I'll be checking in with him later tonight, and if I hear_ ** _anything_** _that indicates you haven't given him everything he needs from you, you'll be going back through the Rift in pieces. Clear?_  

 _"Yeah." Michael nodded, even though Harkness's broad back was turned. "Perfectly."_  

 _Harkness's voice was soft but deadly. "Well, in that case… you've got a little over ten and a half hours left to be with him. I suggest you don't waste another second of it."_  

_He remained facing the screen while Michael got the hell out of Dodge, his mind reeling with new perspective vertigo — and the urgent need to find KITT and bridge the chasm his own thoughtless words had opened up between them, because no matter what his motivations had been…_

_… no matter what he'd intended, nothing was worth the devastation those words had awakened in KITT's haunting new eyes._  

Warmth. Softness. An arm encircling his waist in turn, slender and strong. He broke the surface of sleep as smoothly as a dolphin returning to the realm of air, and found that at some point during the night he'd reached out and pulled KITT to him: they were cuddled right up against each other now, sharing a single pillow, legs entwined and KITT's blond head tucked under the angle of his jaw. He could feel the android breathing, slowly and peacefully; he could smell KITT's artificial hair and skin, like incense in the temple of an unknown God —

— and he could remember, so clearly, the scent of KITT's other body: metal and glass, plastic and upholstery, sheltering him while the rest of the world passed by outside bulletproof windows and uncounted miles of road vanished beneath their wheels. He remembered how KITT's inorganic substance had sometimes felt like it was one with his own flesh-and-blood body — and how, together, they'd broken the bonds of time and space as effortlessly as if they travelled on an angel's sacred wings. 

KITT's form had changed. The universe itself was tearing them apart. But in spite of everything their love remained, pure and unconquered — and utterly indelible. Unique, as their partnership had been unique. Timeless, because no force of destiny could sever the ties of adoration and memory.

He ducked his head to press a tender kiss to KITT's tousled hair. He felt KITT smile against his shoulder and hold him a little more tightly. And the truth lay clear between them, closer even than their bodies pressed warmly together — two unlikely opposites that had united to become a whole far greater than the sum of its parts.

No matter how many years were destined to come, apart, they would never forget what it had meant to lie together like this, in wordless perfect intimacy. 

Michael smiled contentedly and slept again, secure in the knowledge that for this one night at least, he was exactly where he was meant to be.


	7. The Threshold

"Thirty seconds to Rift closure," Toshiko Sato declared, and thus ushered in the termination of a perfect peace destined from the beginning to end in sorrow and regret.

The unsettling glow of the crack in time and space danced over everything: the Hub's walls, the banks of equipment, the tower that dominated the vast shadowy space — and KITT all in slimly tailored black, standing at Michael's side and gazing at the portal with wide eyes full of dread. If he'd been human, Michael was sure he could have heard his best friend's rapid heartbeat across the six or so inches that separated them; as it was, the flare of distressed blue light over the android's skin told the tale of his savage internal struggle.

"No!" he whispered desperately, then turned that pleading gaze up to his former driver's face. "Michael, please — there has to be another way —!"

But Michael shook his head: after all the times KITT had been strong for him, he could afford to be strong for the both of them now. He kept his tone of voice gentle, but firm: "I'm sorry, buddy…"

For an instant KITT's eyes turned nearly solid crimson with a flare of panic — before rationality reasserted itself, as Michael had known it would, because KITT was forged around a core of something far stronger than steel. He nodded wordlessly, and when Michael turned and reached out he lunged into the embrace, wrapping his arms around Michael's waist and burying his face against Michael's leather-clad shoulder.  

"It's okay, KITT," he whispered against the golden cap of KITT's hair, "it's all right. Everything's gonna be fine." 

KITT made a choked sound like a human sob and burrowed closer, driving the pain in Michael's heart to new heights. He gently disengaged enough to take KITT's head in his hands and tilt it back; he pressed a kiss to KITT's mouth, slow and tender, and felt KITT moan softly, the gleam of radiant tears slipping free from his tightly closed midnight eyes. 

"I love you," he whispered when their lips parted, and smiled warmly down into that pale stricken face through the stinging in his own eyes. "Remember that, okay? I'll _always_ love you."

"Michael…" He could hear the full force of KITT's own unquenchable adoration poured into his barely-breathed name, filling the rapt gaze they shared, and he knew then that there was nothing else left to say — 

— except to Jack Harkness, who stood about two yards back, silently watching them with the cold eyes of a hawk. Michael glanced sideways into his sternly set face and nodded a quick acknowledgement. "Take care of him, huh?"

"With my life," Harkness vowed, and Michael could recognize a pledge truly given when he heard it, especially when he and the pledge's source burned with the flame of a single shared passion. "Forever."

He offered KITT one last smile of encouragement, then took a step back and removed his hands — the hardest thing he'd ever had to do, the irrevocable cleaving of his own heart. With a final miserable shiver, KITT let him go, freeing him to turn away and face the Rift. 

He squared his shoulders and started toward it, but like Orpheus he couldn't resist a final pause and glance back over his shoulder — 

— toward KITT, stiff-backed and teary-eyed, resolutely silent and relentlessly elegant and clearly devastated to his core. Harkness had stepped forward to stand just behind him, his hands clasped around the android's upper arms to steady his lover against his chest; he gazed at Michael past KITT's right ear, and when Michael's gaze fell on him he nodded, once, a wordless seal on the covenant that a brief exchange of short sentences had just forged between them. 

Michael's last thought, as the final seconds ticked away, was an impulse toward telepathy in the direction of a man he'd barely met: _Love him! For God's sake, love him with all your heart and soul… and whatever you do, never let him go! Because even if he doesn't realize it, he needs you…_

_He needs you, and I need you to cherish him because I had no choice but to leave him behind._

"Five seconds," Sato announced, with a little more urgency.

It would have to be enough. He held KITT's yearning gaze for one timeless second, long enough to offer a jaunty smile that included Harkness as well, then turned back to the blinding light, and drew a deep breath — 

— and took the step that placed that shared life, along with the better half of himself, beyond his reach for all eternity.

[THE END]


End file.
